Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Monday, January 27, 1997
Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Monday, January 27, 1997
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.- VeriFone Inc. plans to buy back up to 200,000 shares of its outstanding common stock during the first quarter. VeriFone to buy back
200,000 sharesThe company said today that it will spend up to $9 million for the repurchase. As of Dec. 31, VeriFone had about 23.3 million shares of common stock outstanding. Last year, the company repurchased nearly 2.5 million shares of its stock.
Redwood City, Calif.-based VeriFone was founded in Hawaii in 1981 and has research facilities in Mililani Technology Park and on the Big Island. The company develops, manufactures and markets electronic credit-approval systems to retailers, banks, government agencies and health care providers.
NEW YORK - American Express Co. plans to lay off 3,300 workers this year, or about 5 percent of its employees, to improve the performance of its travel services unit. American Express to lay off
3,300 workersThe announcement today came as the charge-card company reported profits for the fourth quarter rose 55 percent from a year earlier.
About two-thirds of the jobs to be eliminated are based overseas and most come from administrative and support positions in the company's travel related operations, which include its credit and charge cards, said Michael O'Neill, a company spokesman. Some American Express facilities will be closed in the restructuring, including a number of overseas travel offices.
The New York-based company employs about 70,000 workers.
The company said earnings were reduced by $138 million in accounting for the final three months of last year to pay for the restructuring, about $70 million of that going for worker severance payments.
Despite the charge, the company said it earned $595 million, or $1.23 a share in the fourth quarter of 1996, up from $384 million, or 77 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.
NEW YORK - CVS Corp. and Revco DS Inc. said today they are discussing a possible combination of their drugstore operations but added there were no assurances a deal would take place. CVS Corp. looking
to acquire RevcoThe statement was in response to a Wall Street Journal report today that CVS was in talks to acquire Revco, a deal that would create the nation's No. 2 drugstore chain in terms of sales. Together, the companies have about 4,000 stores and revenue of $11 billion, behind No. 1 Walgreen Co. and slightly ahead of No. 2 Rite Aid Corp.
Antitrust officials blocked Revco's proposed $1.8 billion sale to Rite-Aid last year, because the companies shared too many common markets. Since then, Revco has been buying smaller drugstore players.
CVS, the largest drug chain in the Northeast with 1,408 stores, has a current market value of $4.5 billion. Revco, with 2,600 stores from Ohio to Florida, is valued at $2.7 billion. They have at least 275 stores in overlapping markets.
CVS, based in Woonsocket, R.I., had sales of about $5.5 billion in 1996. Revco, of Twinsburg, Ohio, is expected to have revenue of about $5.8 billion in its current fiscal year.
